The Maritime Heritage Project ~~ International Harbors Travel

Daily Alta California, San Francisco, June 3, 1876

The Captain of a vessel is usually a man who, by diligence, experience, the study of navigation and some executive ability, attains his position as a reward of merit and a recognition of his fitness.

A crew of sailors is made up of motley material. In many cases, they are fugitives from justice, and are usually dissolute men. They almost uniformly go aboard ship for the cruise in a state of thorough intoxication, so that frequently out of a crew of twenty-five there are but ten men upon whom the captain can depend when he gets out to sea, until the effects of the debauch have worn off.

Notwithstanding that these facts are so universally known and recognized as scarcely need a statement of them, such a cry has risen against the captains within a year or two as to make them seem unto the public like a parcel of malignant brutes. An ordinary captain sailing into port lives in dread of the reputation he may bear away with him. The sailor having found a willing ear lent to his story, tells it often, enlarges it, embellishes it, and repeats it until it has become a nuisance.

To such an extent is this carried on that there were no less than two cases of cruelty in Court in one day last week, while a third had been disposed of only the day before. It is true that the absolute authority a Captain holds aboard ship is apt to invest him with an imperative will and a tyrannical manner, but it does not follow that he should be a monster of cruelty. Enough sympathy has been expended upon the sailor who enjoys his position of martyr all too well. It is time to transfer a little feeling tot he case of Captains, several of whom have left and many of whom have left other harbors, branded with an irremediable and undeserved mark. Mr. Plimsell�s friendship for the sailor has given that gentleman a very comfortable hobby to ride, but has stirred Jack Tar into a state of chronic dissatisfaction and complaint. Every one believed and sympathized at first, but the cases are becoming so frequent as to exhaust sympathy.

Surely some method might be pursued of privately examining the captain who is accused, sometimes by a conspiracy of seamen without giving his name to infamy till it is certain he deserves it.

Page: http://www.maritimeheritage.org/sailors
Date Entered: November 1999
Source: Geographicus, Newspaper Archives, Daily Alta California

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